A societal shift to the right or the political mobilisation of a shrinking minority Explaining rise and radicalisation of the AfD in Germany

This paper discusses whether the swift rise and radicalisation of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) as the first electorally successful far-right party in Germany in decades was caused by a general societal shift to the right. It first operationalises the concept of a shift towards the (far) right with references to Norberto Bobbio and Cas Mudde. Then it discusses whether such a shift has taken place on four levels: public policy, political behaviour, individual attitudes, and public discourse. The picture is heterogeneous but offers no compelling evidence for a societal shift to the right. As an alternative explanation, the paper argues that the rise and radicalisation of the AfD should rather be understood as the formation of a far-right project in reaction to an ambivalent process of liberalisation - a process of liberalisation that can itself be endangered by this far-right formation.